


With Rough, Unsteady Lines

by missmichellebelle



Series: Tropetember [12]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Artists, Artist Mickey, Artists, Fluff, Humor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Nude Model Ian, Nude Modeling, Past Child Abuse, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 12:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2308982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey draws skulls, and dragons, and one time he drew a pretty sweet gun, but it’s just something he does because he’s bored. It’s not like he <i>enjoys</i> it, or whatever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Rough, Unsteady Lines

**Author's Note:**

> **Tropetember** is a month long event where the goal is to write a fic fulfilling a different trope/AU every day (except for one random day a week where I don't feel like it apparently). If there is a specific trope/AU you would like to see, please [drop me an ask on tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Prompted to me anonymously on tumblr. uwu
> 
> The fandom seems big on Mickey being an artist, and this is always a fun trope to play with. I almost gave up on it, but after some convincing, I pushed through it.
> 
> I've taken like. Two art classes in my entire life. Hopefully that's not super apparent in this.

Mickey has been doodling since the first time he held a crayon. Sure, it was just scribbles and shit, but it still counts. As far as Mickey’s concerned, that’s all his art really amounts to—lines. Lines on top of lines on top of, hey, more fucking lines, and sometimes it makes a picture and sometimes it doesn’t. Doodling really only became a habit when he started real school (not that kindergarten bullshit) and started sketching in the blank spaces of workbook pages and quizzes.

But that’s all it’s ever been. Mickey draws skulls, and dragons, and one time he drew a pretty sweet gun, but it’s just something he does because he’s bored. It’s not like he _enjoys_ it, or whatever. He zones out, he doodles, and then he gets bitched at because apparently a drawing of a demon horse is not an appropriate answer for, “What are the main themes in _Of Mice and Men?_ ” What-the-fuck-ever.

And then he’s fourteen and sketching Andrew Henderson’s profile on the back of his math notes, and he doesn’t really notice until he’s shading in the eye that he’s even done it. It’s not like anything Mickey’s ever drawn before, and he stares at it in surprise. After class, he rips it into as many pieces as he can and throws it away. It’s not like he was going to pass that math test, anyway.

The next person he draws is Mandy. Sitting on the couch in their living room, chewing on a piece of hair while she watches some movie, and Mickey is drawing with the nub of a dull pencil on the back of some junk mail envelope that was sitting nearby. He doesn’t even really mean to draw her, he just… _Does_.

Before he can finish, before he can show it to Mandy, his dad is ripping the drawing out of his hands. “What kind of faggy shit is this?” He presses it into Mickey’s face, the paper right up against his forehead and nose, Mickey’s eyes crossed as they try to focus on the faint grey lines. The hit comes sudden and hard (but not wholly unexpected) to the side of his face, jerking his head on his neck and Mickey doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. He can feel Mandy staring at him from the other side of the room, not making a noise, not drawing attention to herself. Mickey is glad for that.

He hears the tearing of paper, and then his dad is cursing under his breath, whispered threats that plant themselves like seeds in Mickey’s brain, and then he’s stomping away.

Mickey knows he got off easy, and he stops drawing where anyone—especially his dad—can catch him doing it. He’d stop altogether, if he could, but sometimes it feels like his skin itches until he draws. Like he fucking needs it or something.

He doesn’t like needing things.

It’s not until later that he finds out Mandy searched for the pieces of the drawing and taped it back together. She gets him a sleek looking book for his birthday that year (no doubt steals it, but Mickey started stealing when he was a lot younger than she is), sneaks into his room once their dad has passed out to give it to him. It’s a sketchbook, and she even produces some special pencils (yep, definitely stole them, then) and insists he takes them.

“Don’t stop just because he said to,” she whispers to him, and Mickey just gives her a look and then hugs her close to his side.

Every year after that, Mandy buys him a sketchbook, like a tradition. And every year, Mickey needs a new one—his old one is always full of drawings by then.

*

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Mickey takes the L up to Malcolm X for a life drawing class. Not that he couldn’t just walk the fuck outside and draw someone for _free_ , but the South Side knows him, knows his family, knows his _dad_. Mickey’d be stupid as fuck to so much as brandish a pencil within a 20 block radius of the Milkovich house.

Malcolm X is far enough away that he has no need to worry, and comes with the upside of Mickey not having to smuggle his own limited supplies halfway across fucking Chicago. Not exactly like art supply stores are a huge thing in the South Side, and Mickey isn’t about to spend _more_ money on this shit.

Plus, it’s… Kind of nice. Not that he’d ever admit it to anyone (not that anyone but Mandy even _knows_ he’s been taking art classes). Sure, people side-eye him and his tattoos and that South Side grime that is so soaked into his skin, Mickey’s sure people can see it no matter how many showers he takes. That they’ll always be able to see it.

But no one says a fucking thing to him, and Mickey can even pretend he’s just another fucking 21-year-old who doesn’t come from a broken home and a fucked up family.

It’s only the third week of these classes, and Mickey knows what to expect by now. He’s got his station, he knows which medium he likes to use (charcoal is kind of fucking awesome and looks sweet as shit, but he’ll always be a pencil man), and he knows that the teacher will come in toting some random model who will drop robe and let it all hang out.

As in, they get buck-ass naked.

They’re not _real_ models, either—as in the fashion magazine, runway walking, all that other faggy shit that Mickey couldn’t give two fucks about models. They’re not those. They’re volunteers, or whatever. People who just have the confidence to stand on a fucking platform and get stared at for an hour and a half. Mickey knows he couldn’t fucking do that.

The whole naked thing had kind of made him uncomfortable at first, because Mickey doesn’t really just stare at naked people. Not outside of the glossy pages of his porn magazines, at least, but Mickey doesn’t really count those as _people_. For Mickey, the only reason to be naked with another person is for the sake of fucking, and that is obviously not what’s going on here.

Not that Mickey has really wanted to fuck either of the two models they’ve had—a middle-aged, chubby black woman, with the craziest hair that Mickey has ever seen (he’d spent almost the entire week trying to draw it _just right_ ), and an old crotchety fucker that was basically just a giant wrinkle (and Mickey had drawn wrinkle after wrinkle after wrinkle). He’d also only drawn faces, each and every day, a fact that the “teacher” continues to bring up to him.

“You’re not going to learn if you don’t push yourself outside your comfort zone,” she tells him, and he just levels her with a stare and doesn’t say anything.

The naked thing doesn’t get to him anymore, but he still doesn’t want to draw saggy tits and old-man balls. Who the fuck wants to draw that shit?

But it’s a new week, which means a new model. Mickey wonders what sort of naked person he’ll be forced to look at today.

Mickey is flicking his pencil in his fingers, staring across the studio with his eyes unfocused, when the teacher walks in, heading straight for the stereo as she usually does—the music is completely instrumental, and she keeps the volume low, but Mickey still wishes she fucking _wouldn’t_.

“Brushes ready,” she trills, even though none of them use fucking paint brushes, and Mickey pulls his attention back in, eyes turning to the model on the platform.

…the guy who, _shit_ , looks like an actual model. It’s not some fucking old guy or chubby woman, but a young, attractive, could-actually-be-a-model model. And then, without warning, he unties the robe and lets it pool around his feet, and suddenly Mickey’s art class is like a fucking porno. Shit, this is what he gets for having a brain conditioned to associate nudity with _fucking_.

(And god would Mickey let this guy _fuck_ him…)

Fuck, the last thing he needs to do is pop a fucking _boner_ in his art class. Not that anyone’s paying attention to him—everyone else is already drawing, and Mickey is just fucking sitting there. He shakes his head a few times, swallows, and then looks at the model again. He’s in profile, body angled more towards Mickey so that he’s _really_ getting the full frontal treatment, so Mickey purses his lips and concentrates on the guy’s face.

Mickey really likes drawing faces. They’re probably his favorite thing to draw, actually. Something about all the nuances in them, or how the same face can look so fucking different depending on what second you happen to be looking at it. Not that Mickey would ever say as much. The only person who ever talks to him about his art is Mandy, after all, and she seems content just telling him how fucking good he is (not that he _minds_ , even if he acts like he does).

The model’s face is unfortunately blank and neutral, chin tilted up at the slightest angle, the studio lights washing out most of the dynamic shadows. Life drawing classes aren’t so much about pieces of art as they are about learning how to draw the human figure (or so his teacher likes to constantly tell them), but Mickey looks at that face and just… Wants to make it art. That’s the only way he can explain it.

After twenty minutes, the teacher calls out, “Pose!” and the model shifts position, forcing Mickey to refocus his eyes on the entirety of his sketch rather than on segments of lines and curls. He’s surprised to find that he didn’t stop at the neck, but that he drew shoulders and upper arms and elbows and a chest. He doesn’t think too hard on that as he flips to a clean sheet, and then starts to draw again.

The model's back is to Mickey now, head turned to the side so that Mickey can see his profile over the curve of his shoulder, face tilted downwards this time. Mickey can’t imagine that holding that pose for twenty minutes is at all comfortable.

But he’s got to hand it to the guy—he knows how to pose. Mickey’s hand is flying instantly across the page, and he actually does wish he was using charcoal just to get the intensity of the shadows that he wants. He breaks the tip off one pencil and immediately picks up another one.

This time, he’s aware of his lines as they drift further away from the face, drawing softs curves and hard edges like he has the paper pressed to the model’s back and is simply tracing his figure. Mickey’s pencil moves in quick, fast strokes across the page, pulling a human body out of the paper—neck and arms, shoulder blades and back, hips and ass. When the teacher calls time, Mickey is still working on the details of the hands, which is fucking weird because he never draws hands.

Class always follows a pattern. Pose one, pose two, ten minute break, pose three, pose four. It’s supposed to be a time to stretch their hands or to eat snacks or mingle, some sort of bullshit, but Mickey stays at his easel, fingers fumbling for the charcoal as he narrows his eyes at the drawing before him. For some reason, he needs to finish it.

“Is _that_ what my ass looks like?”

Mickey’s hand jolts, and whoever just scared the shit out of him while he was sketching is _so fucking lucky_ he thought to pull his hand away from the page. A mistake with charcoal is not a mistake that can be undone. Mickey considers setting it down, but he doesn’t like small talk, and he only has so much time to do this before he’ll have to start another drawing. So he just turns his head and adopts the most annoyed expression he can (which isn’t hard, because he’s seriously _fucking_ annoyed).

The model is standing there, wrapped up in his robe again, and staring at Mickey’s drawing with parted lips and wide eyes. There’s a flare of defensiveness—he’s not really a fan of strangers looking at his art—but it’s hard to focus on when he keeps tracing the lines of the models face with his eyes, imagining them as marks on paper. Mickey’s fingers itch with how badly he wants to draw that expression.

But his gaze stays absolutely steely, and when the model realizes he’s gawking, he smiles a little sheepishly.

“Sorry, you’re the only one who’s still working—all the other artists covered their work, and I was curious. I’ve never really been drawn before.” His eyes flick back to the drawing again, and Mickey feels a weird sort of anxiety that he’s not used to. “This—you’re really fucking talented,” he gushes quietly. “Do I really look like that?”

Mickey can’t bring himself to answer. He keeps thinking how he wishes he had a camera, or a photographic memory, or fucking _something_ , because every twitch of the model’s face gives Mickey something new to get out.

“You can get back to work. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.” The model shifts his weight, crosses his arms and twitches his fingers against the robe. “Would it be okay if I watched you?” He finally asks, pressing his lower lip between his teeth, and Mickey doesn’t understand how he can just _look_ like that all the time. Like every still frame that makes up his movements are works of art in their own right.

“Whatever.” At this point, Mickey just needs to draw. It doesn’t matter that he won’t get to draw every image he just saw, at least he’ll be drawing _something_.

He’s glad he waits to turn around, because the model smiles, and it’s just a fucking _smile_ , but it hits Mickey in the chest like a bullet. Without another word, he turns back to his sketch and goes at it. Seeing the model up close gave him a whole different perspective, showed him things he can’t see at a distance. Like that his eyes are green, or that he has freckles, or that there's this quirk by his mouth that wasn’t there when he was posing but that Mickey kept looking at as he talked.

And all the while, he’s aware of the model standing by his shoulder, watching him. Mickey wonders what it’s like, to be drawn by someone. He’s always the artist, after all, never the subject. He imagines it would be pretty fucking weird, though, seeing the way someone else sees you.

“All right!” The teacher claps her hands, and Mickey pulls the nub of charcoal away from the paper, looking at his result and feeling pretty satisfied. He wishes he had even a little skill with paint, just because he wants to add some hints of color. All it needs is a little red…

He sets aside the charcoal and starts wiping his fingers on the rag waiting in his lap, and then glances over his shoulder where the model is still standing. He looks utterly fascinated, and like he wants to say something, before he realizes that the end of the artists’ break means the end of his as well. He shoots the drawing (and Mickey) one more glance before he heads back up to the platform.

This is the time when the teacher drags out the stool and settles it down for the model to pose on—trying to get the students to draw something more _dynamic_ —and Mickey is surprised when the model perches on it and faces him straight on. He tilts his head just enough that he’s looking up through his lashes, and there’s the smallest hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. He’s nearly reclined on the stool, legs stretched out long in front of him, and Mickey nearly rips the old drawing trying to get to a clean page.

As Mickey’s pencil flies across the paper, he wonders if what the model saw in Mickey’s perspective of him was more telling than Mickey realized.

*

There are 15 minutes at the end of class where the teacher walks around and reviews their drawings, giving them tips and constructive criticism and sometimes drawing right on the images in bright red corrective sharpie. If she comes anywhere near his drawings with it, Mickey thinks he might break her fucking wrist.

After nearly an hour and a half of straight speed drawing, his hand is cramped and hurts like a bitch, feeling stuck in the position it takes whenever he olds a pencil. He shakes them out, flexes his fingers, massages his own hand, as he waits for the teacher to possibly get to him. She’s a talker, and she usually only ends up getting to maybe half of the students before time’s up.

Mickey doesn’t even realize that the model is standing beside him until he mutters a soft, “Hey,” and Mickey turns to look at him in confusion. He’s in street clothes now, backpack slung over his shoulder, and all Mickey can think is, _Why do I want to keep drawing you so badly?_

“I realize this is probably annoying, and invasive, but do you think I could see the other drawings you did?” It’s weird, because he sounds confident in what he’s asking, but unsure about whether or not he’s going to get it.

“Why?” Mickey can’t help but ask. He’s certain he’s not the most talented person in the class—most of these people have probably been taking classes for years, and Mickey just sort of started drawing one day. He’s taken two other art classes at Malcolm X—one was just a general introduction, showed him how to work with different materials, and the other had focused simply on landscape drawing (needless to say, Mickey quickly realized he was _not_ a fan)—so yeah, he’d probably bet his left testicle that some of these fuckers are gifted.

And yet the model is standing next to his easel, wanting to see _his_ work.

“I just… Really liked that one drawing. I’m curious what the other ones look like.”

Mickey stares at him long and hard, eyebrows furrowed like he’s talking to some kind of alien, and then he rolls his eyes and opens his drawing pad up to the third drawing—the first one is shit, and he’s not fucking showing it to anyone, but he likes the other ones. Fuck, he’d even keep them, if he could risk it.

But he can’t.

No matter how proud of his work he is, it’ll all end up in a trash can somewhere when this is all said and done.

“…can I see that first one again?” The model asks, voice quiet, and his fingers are curled over the back of Mickey’s chair. He’s leaning in, too, like he wants to be able to see it closer, but is really just invading Mickey’s personal space. Mickey doesn’t say anything, just flips back to the charcoal ass picture, and stares at it. He doesn’t want to, because the longer he stares at it, the more he’s going to find mistakes and things he should fix. But the only other place to look is the model’s stupid fucking face, and Mickey doesn’t want to do something stupid like grab his pad off the easel and start sketching the model’s current expression immediately.

“Mickey.” It’s the teacher, coming to stand behind him. Generally she sounds resigned when speaking to him, but she actually sounds… Impressed. “No longer just drawing faces, I see.” She leans closer to it, inspecting it, and Mickey clenches his jaw, ready to bat away any impending red sharpie marks. He wanted hints of red, but not _that_ way. “The arms are a little thin, and the neck is too long. The contouring in the face is wonderful, but it’s inconsistent with the rest of the body. Your lines are a little _too_ rough and unpolished. Try longer, smoother lines than all of those quick, little ones, okay?” She smiles at him, pats his shoulder, and he glares straight at his _rough, unpolished lines_.

“Oh, and Ian, thank you so much for this.” Mickey blinks out of his brooding when he realizes that she’s no longer addressing him, but the model.

“No problem, Professor Shephard. Extra credit, right?” And the model laughs, and Mickey wants so badly to look at him, to _see_ it, but doesn’t let himself.

Fucking artistic urges.

“Wednesday, same time, all right?”

“You got it.” And with that, the teacher—apparently Professor Shephard, Mickey had not bothered trying to remember that before—walks on to the next student. “She teaches my art history class at U of C, said if we helped her out by volunteering as models we’d get extra credit,” he explains to Mickey, like Mickey gives a shit.

“Good for you?” Mickey says, unable to keep the judgmental tone out of his voice. The fuck is he supposed to say to that? This guy want a medal for it or something?

“…and I realize I’m not an art teacher, but, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your lines. And I think the way the neck is long, and the arms are thin, makes me seem… Elegant. Ethereal, almost.”

Mickey turns to stare at him, because what the _fuck_ is this guy talking about?

“I have no idea what the fuck you’re saying,” Mickey tells him, and he laughs, and _fuck_ , it makes Mickey’s hands fucking _tingle_ with inspiration. What kind of person is a fucking work of art, anyway? Seriously.

“I guess I am kind of talking out my ass. I’m Ian, by the way.” As if Mickey didn’t hear the teacher call him that. Ian waits, as if he expects Mickey to introduce himself, and when he doesn’t, prompts: “And you’re Mickey?”

“Congratulations on your fucking observation skills,” Mickey says under his breath, starting to gather all of his supplies into his art pouch. Ian let’s out another little laugh, and Mickey clenches his jaw and fights the need to start drawing.

“Okay, well, see you Wednesday.”

And just like that, he’s gone. Mickey feels tension rush out of his shoulders, and he turns back to his drawing. Ethereal, huh?

“Actually—“

“Fucking _christ_ ,” Mickey hisses, nearly falling out of his chair as Ian pops back up behind him.

“Do you think I could have that?”

Mickey blinks at him, unsure of what he means.

“…your drawing?”

“You want my piece of shit drawing?” Mickey asks, eyebrows pinched, and something flickers in Ian’s eyes, makes them look softer.

This guy has a fucking million and one expressions, and Mickey wants to draw every single fucking one of them—and hates himself for it.

“It’s not a piece of shit. And yes, I do. Would… That be okay?”

“You’re the one who wants a drawing of his own ass,” Mickey mutters, standing up so he can carefully tear the drawing out of the pad. He’s not actually sure he’s allowed to do this, but whatever. It’ll just be garbage, anyway.

Still, it feels… Weird. It feels super fucking weird to be handing something he made to someone else who isn’t his sister. It’s weird that someone else in the world knows that he can draw, and will have proof of it. That someone else in the world apparently thinks he’s _good_ at it.

Mickey holds it out, and Ian stares at it.

“Fucking change your mind?”

“No, I just—aren’t you going to sign it?”

“S’cuse me?”

“Don’t artists usually sign their work?”

“I’m not an artist,” Mickey clarifies, holding the drawing out a little more forcefully (and yet still hyper aware of how hard he’s gripping the paper so that he doesn’t ruin it with any permanent creasing).

“…you look like one to me,” Ian says softly, and Mickey has to look away. The class is nearly empty now, and they probably use this room for something else after this, so there really isn’t time for this shit. “Come on, just sign it.”

“God, you are fucking _persistent_ as shit, anyone ever tell you that?” Mickey growls, pinning the drawing to his pad and grabbing at the nub of charcoal that’s still sitting on his tray. His signature is shitty looking, but he still scrawls it in the bottom corner.

“All the time,” Ian replies simply, and then Mickey is holding out the drawing again, and Ian takes it with this weird sort of reverence that makes Mickey feel embarrassed.

“Enjoy your ass drawing,” Mickey mumbles, finally closing his sketchpad and picking up his things to store them in the lockers at the edge of the classroom.

“Oh, I will!” Ian calls after him.

*

On the train ride home, Mickey finds a receipt in his pocket, and since the ride is long, and boring, and his head is still filled with lines and shapes and images, he finds himself drawing on the back of it.

When his stop finally comes up, and he has to come back down to reality, he’s surprised to see Ian’s face at a 3/4 angle, mouth open around a smile.

And all Mickey can think is, _Fuck_.

**Author's Note:**

> ...I know. I hate me, too.
> 
>  
> 
> [Read, Reblog, & Like on Tumblr (or just come say hello!)](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/97549198945/with-rough-unsteady-lines)


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